Whether it has failed or not, as respects ourselves, the grand experiment has certainly failed as respects foreign nations, and in producing that edifying effect which was anticipated upon the cause of liberty. If they thought the Confederation a failure, and were ready "to prophecy the American downfall" then, I see no reason why they should anticipate anything better now that we have made with a better Constitution, and in a second experiment reduced ourselves to the same helpless and desperate condition. The Atlantic bears across its waters, from its western shore, the same tale of distress, the same complaints of a bankrupt treasury, commerce and industry unprotected, destruction of the public credit, annihilation of the currency, dissensions between States, civil war, and an audible cry of disunion. 66 "Quivi sospiri pianti, ed alti guai Voci alti e fiocchi e suon di man con elle," and the conclusion, which they suggest to the transatlantic spectator, may very likely be not inaccurately expressed by the exclamation with which the poet, in the Inferno, introduces his disciple to the scene of those sounds, of which we have borrowed his description, to express those which now pervade our unfortunate country. "Noi sem venuti al luogo ov' io t'ho detto Che vedrai le genti dolorose Ch' hanno perduto 'l ben dello 'ntellettro." But as regards ourselves, I do not consider this experiment a total failure. But it is only because I know that, with men of energy and of fixed purpose, the failure of the first experiment for a great object generally leads to the trying it again, with new elements and a new mode of treatment; because I think that, but for that excessive confidence in our own invention and resources, unaided by experience, so common in this country, (of which we are likely to be well cured before long,) there is, after all, a large residuum of common sense; because I am convinced that, as long as the experiment continued to go on at all, there was no hope of its succeeding; and that the only chance for it not to fail was, if I may be allowed the Hibernian exaggeration, for it to fail entirely; that the only way of return, for a "state that is out of joint," to form and order is through chaos; that the principle of entire decay is the principle of regeneration; that a total dissolution alone vivifies the germ of new life; that a new organization can only find strength in the putrescent fermentation of the old; and because reversing the argument of Lucretius, who proved the eternity of the elementary atoms of Nature by that of the system, which, however changed in position and arrangement, by their never ending combinations they perpetually renew and repair, I argue the duration of a government, essentially free and essentially republican in this country, from the immortality of those principles of justice and liberty, which have never before been in combination so unmixed with the heterogeneous fragments of past social systems. However long and violent may be that altercation (that allλorvæɛia, to use the expressive word which, in the phraseology of the Epicurean philosophy, expresses a similar process of the physical elements) by which these principles may type and shape themselves to each other, however numerous the forms of combination and the varieties of movement they may try, I believe, that like those Epicurean atoms, of immortal material, and strong in their solid simplicity, "immortali premordia corpore, solida pollentia simplicitate," they will at last combine themselves into one consistent and harmonious whole. "Nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum Omne genus motus, et cœtus experiundo Tandem deveniunt in taleis disposituras, Qualibus hæc rerum consistit summa creata, shifting of interest, because they will be bound by it whenever interest shifts again. But as long as they can alter it by a mere change of interpretation, they do not hesitate to do so; for what they have voted to be unconstitutional to-day, they know they can, for a different purpose and with different interests, vote to be constitutional to-morrow, under a new party organization, and with a different device. A constitution, which can only be changed by a revolution, or by a formal and express change, is tolerably certain; but save us from the revolution of a popular gloss; save us from a constitution whose every-day working is revolution, and which makes a provision for its own perpetual stultification. It may be thought perhaps, by those who have not reflected seriously upon this tendency of our institutions, that there is a great deal of exaggeration in all this. It is difficult, not to say impossible, to exaggerate the state of prostration in which. the Constitution and the country now are; impossible for the most sombre imagination "to cast a browner horror o'er the shade" which hangs over the industry and the administration of this country. That instinct of disintegration, which loosens all the principles which connect the different parts of the social system together, that centrifugal bias which impels with a strong divergence states and individuals, and which perpetually counteracts the compulsive attraction of a mutual necessity, which inspires every man with a horror of everything, right or wrong, which has once been decided, and which carried out would leave him subject to no restraint, except the iron rod of the majority, (or whether of the whole country or a portion of it, which is omnipotent on the spot which he inhabits,) and free to act for himself in every particular of which that majority does not take cognizance, has again reduced the government and the country to a state of prostration and crisis, which forces upon us the most serious consideration of the causes and the remedy. "La misére," as the French proverb has it, "fait naitre bien de reflexions," moments of misery are very apt to be moments of leisure; and the fruits of such leisure are apt to be reflec tions both salutary and bitter. A moment uniting so com pletely all the conditions of this species of fructification, misery, and leisure, and enough of both, has not occurred in this country since 1787. "The existing state of the country," said Mr. Clay, in his speech of the 21st of January, "presents very much the same aspect as the old Confederation with its weakness and imbecility." In 1787 the Convention were appealed to to prevent the fulfilment of the "prophecies of the American downfall." It is not a very desirable office to be the first to express (if it were possible, after this declaration of Mr. Clay's) a sentiment of treason, as it might be considered perhaps, to say that this second grand experiment of Republicanism is a total failure. This is a conclusion so mortifying, so discouraging, even with the little patriotism, the little attachment which we have displayed for the institutions of 1787, that though it be in the hearts of many, few can or will see it; and one might in expressing it, address the public as Cassius is imagined to have done Brutus in a case of real conspiracy. "Therefore, good public, be prepared to hear, So well as by reflection, I, your glass, That of yourself which you yet know not of." - We have in fact advanced as far as it is possible to go, with a hope of return, to that state of dilapidation of the Constitution, of which I have already ventured to predict the possibility, in which the people would be ready to throw it away, as unfit for the purpose for which it is contrived, and good for nothing, except to produce confusion and dissension; and there are already many who, like our forefathers in the last century, are so "Groaning under this age's yoke," that they would prefer to try some new governmental experiment, rather than to adhere to the present, "Under such hard conditions as this time Is like to lay upon us." Whether it has failed or not, as respects ourselves, the grand experiment has certainly failed as respects foreign nations, and in producing that edifying effect which was anticipated upon the cause of liberty. If they thought the Confederation a failure, and were ready "to prophecy the American downfall" then, I see no reason why they should anticipate anything better now that we have made with a better Constitution, and in a second experiment reduced ourselves to the same helpless and desperate condition. The Atlantic bears across its waters, from its western shore, the same tale of distress, the same complaints of a bankrupt treasury, commerce and industry unprotected, destruction of the public credit, annihilation of the currency, dissensions between States, civil war, and an audible cry of disunion. "Quivi sospiri pianti, ed alti guai Paroli di dolore accenti d' ira Voci alti e fiocchi e suon di man con elle," and the conclusion, which they suggest to the transatlantic spectator, may very likely be not inaccurately expressed by the exclamation with which the poet, in the Inferno, introduces his disciple to the scene of those sounds, of which we have borrowed his description, to express those which now pervade our unfortunate country. "Noi sem venuti al luogo ov' io t'ho detto Che vedrai le genti dolorose Ch' hanno perduto 'l ben dello 'ntellettro." But as regards ourselves, I do not consider this experiment a total failure. But it is only because I know that, with men of energy and of fixed purpose, the failure of the first experiment for a great object generally leads to the trying it again, with new elements and a new mode of treatment; because I think that, but for that excessive confidence in our own invention and resources, unaided by experience, so common in this country, (of which we are likely to be well cured before |